Letter

LEBANON / Ten. // FEB / 4 [1862] cds with matching PAID 5 (CSA Catalog type B) on cover to S. Cabiness (sic), Esq, Huntsville Ala., with original letter from D. Cook, Jr. who is trying to settle the affairs of his recently deceased brother, George. This cover and addressee will be the subject of a column in The American Stamp Dealer and Collector. CCV $300. $300.

Septimus Douglass Cabaniss (1815-1889) was a prominent Huntsville attorney. He graduated from UVA in 1835, after which he returned to Huntsville to read law under local attorney Silas Parsons. Cabaniss was admitted to the Alabama Bar in 1838 and then commenced practicing law in Huntsville, where he would remain a prominent member of the legal community until his death. In 1858, Cabaniss left his lucrative law practice to concentrate on the settlement of the Samuel Townsend estate. Townsend, a wealthy unmarried Madison County planter, left a will leaving the bulk of his fortune to a selection of his slaves – nine of whom he acknowledged as his children - and providing for their eventual manumission. The Townsend estate was sizeable and complicated in nature; overseeing the activities of these heirs, as well as the litigation involved in probating the estate, was a time-consuming endeavor. The Townsend estate was valued at approximately $200,000, including eight plantations totaling 7,560 acres and 190 slaves. Political aspirations may have also influenced Cabaniss’s decision to leave his practice, as he was a member of the Alabama state legislature from 1861-1863. There is some speculation that Cabaniss served as a colonel in Confederate Army intelligence during the Civil War, but his name is not listed on any regiment rosters for the State of Alabama. He was active in Confederate causes during the war.